We are the Property Litigation Association. You can find further details about us and how to contact us in sections in the ‘Our details‘ section below.
This notice explains how we handle personal data about our website visitors and members.
For the purposes of EU data protection law, we are the ‘controller’ of this personal data.
In this notice, “PLA”, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to the Property Litigation Association.
Types of personal data we process
The types of personal data we process in the normal course of our business are:
Core processing purposes
The purposes for which we use personal data in the normal course of our activities, the types of personal data we use for those purposes and our legal bases for doing so are set out in the table below. An explanation of what the different legal bases mean can be viewed here.
| Purposes of processing | Types of personal data | Legal basis |
| Analysing use of our website | Usage data | Our legitimate interests in monitoring and improving our website and services for the benefit of all users and members |
| Considering applicants’ eligibility for membership of PLA | Membership application data | Our legitimate interests in the proper administration of our membership |
| Requesting and receiving payment of membership fees | Membership application data
Billing data |
Performance of a contract – payment of the membership fee in return for being a member and receiving the various benefits and services we provide to members. |
| Maintaining a membership database in order to keep a record of our members and subscriptions | Membership application data
Account data (when relevant data is updated by members) |
Our legitimate interests in the proper administration of our membership |
| Enabling members to create online accounts | Membership application data | Our legitimate interests in restricting access to, and enabling members to access, member-only areas of our website and providing a means for members to add, delete and rectify information about them so that our records can be kept up to date and so that members can choose what information to make available on their member profile |
| The legitimate interests of us and PLA members in exchanging relevant information among members of PLA, promoting the listed members’ specialist property litigation skills to the wider property industry and others with an interest in property, and acting upon individual members’ expressed wishes to have certain information about them made available to the public and other members. | ||
| Inviting members to join the PLA LinkedIn group | Membership application data | |
| Enabling members to create and maintain their online profiles | Profile data | |
| Publishing content on our website at the request of members, such as articles, blogs, conference papers, updates and comments | Publication data | Our legitimate interests and those of our members in providing a network for the exchange of information among PLA members and promoting specialist property litigation skills within the property industry and among others with an interest in property |
Administering and organising events, including:
|
Event registration data | The legitimate interests of us and our members in providing and attending events that enable the exchange of information among PLA members and provide training and education in property litigation |
| Requesting and receiving payment of fees for chargeable PLA events | Event registration data
Billing data |
Performance of a contract – payment to attend the event |
| Communicating with PLA members, website users and others and keeping records of such communications | Correspondence data | Our legitimate interests in the proper administration of our website and business and communications with PLA members, website users and others |
| Keeping records of our transactions with members | Transaction data | Our legitimate interests in keeping records of transactions for the proper administration of our business and for complying with legal obligations to retain records of transactions. |
| Sending recent news, publications and updates relating to the PLA, PLA members and property litigation law and practice to our members | Notification data
Membership application data (email address) Account data (email address) |
The legitimate interests of us and our membership in enabling members to stay up-to-date with property litigation news and developments, which is one of the main benefits of being a PLA member and forms part of our core objects as an organisation |
Data we use to send you news, publications and updates:
We use the email address provided in membership application forms, as updated by members from time to time, to send recent news, publications and updates relating to the PLA, PLA members and property litigation law and practice to our members.
We also send PLA members’ names, email addresses and membership number to Globe Business Publishing Ltd (“Globe“) so that they can send a Lexology daily newsfeed of property litigation-related items direct to PLA members. You can choose to stop receiving any of these emails at any time by:
Other processing purposes
In addition to the core processing activities set out above, we may also process personal data if and to the extent necessary for the following purposes:
| Purpose | Legal basis |
| Establishing, exercising or defending legal claims | Our legitimate interests in defending legal claims brought against us, enforcing claims against others and protecting and asserting our legal rights and the legal rights of you and others |
| Obtaining or maintaining insurance coverage, managing risks or obtaining professional advice | Our legitimate interests in protecting our business against risks |
| Compliance with a legal obligation such as a statutory or regulatory obligation or an order of a court, government body or regulator. | Compliance with a legal obligation |
| In order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person | Protection of vital interests |
Explanation of legal bases
It is only lawful to process personal data if there is a legal basis for doing it. Below is an explanation of the legal bases referred to in this notice.
Legitimate interests: processing of personal data is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests of us or a third party, except where such interests are overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms
Performance of a contract: processing of personal data is necessary for the performance of a contract with an individual or in order to take steps at the request of an individual prior to entering into a contract
Compliance with a legal obligation: processing of personal data is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation imposed by UK or EU law
Protection of vital interests: processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of you or another individual
We may share the personal data described in this notice with the following categories of recipients, where and to the extent necessary for the purposes described in this notice:
| Service provider name | Nature of services | Type of personal data processed |
| Emma Hill and Jo Luxton | Administration of all PLA business and activity generally | All categories of data described in this notice |
| WPEngine, Inc. | Hosting of the PLA website | All categories of data described in this notice |
| Tela Ltd | Design and technical support for website | The support provided may involve Tela staff processing data that is available on publicly accessible areas of our website as well as data stored in the databases underlying our website such as account data and data collected by our web contact form |
| The Rocket Science Group LLC d/b/a MailChimp | Email services | Names and email addresses of PLA members (see MailChimp’s Privacy Policy for further details) |
| SurveyMonkey Europe UC | Online surveys, forms, applications and questionnaires | Names and emails addresses of PLA members and any personal data collected as a result of interaction with the surveys, forms, applications and questionnaires (see SurveyMonkey’s Privacy Policy for further details) |
| Globe Business Publishing Ltd (Lexology) | Sending Lexology email newsfeeds to PLA members | Names, email addresses and membership numbers of PLA members |
| Town & Provincial Seminars Ltd trading as TPS | PLA event organization, publicity and administration in relation to larger PLA events | Names, email addresses, name of firm and contact details of PLA members |
Other disclosures:
There may also be circumstances in which we need to share personal data with other organisations or individuals, such as where disclosure is necessary for the purposes set out in the ‘Other processing purposes’ section above.
In all cases, we will only share personal data with such recipients where and to the extent reasonably necessary for the relevant processing purpose and in accordance with applicable data protection law.
This section describes the circumstances in which your personal data may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA).
The hosting facilities for our website are provided by WPEngine, Inc. and situated in the United Kingdom. However, our use of WPEngine services may involve processing of personal data obtained and made available via our website in various countries outside the EEA. WPEngine, Inc. participates in the EU-US Privacy Shield.
Our use of MailChimp to send emails involves a transfer of our members’ names and email addresses to various countries outside the EEA. MailChimp participates in the EU-US Privacy Shield. MailChimp also makes use of Standard Contractual Clauses for any transfers to which the EU-US Privacy Shield does not apply.
Our use of SurveyMonkey involves a transfer of our members’ names and email addresses and any personal data collected as a result of interaction with the surveys, forms, applications and questionnaires to various countries outside the EEA. SurveyMonkey participates in the EU-US Privacy Shield. SurveyMonkey also makes use of Standard Contractual Clauses for any transfers that are not covered by the EU-US Privacy Shield or other safeguards recognized by EU data protection law.
Our use of Apple iCloud may involve a transfer of data stored in our membership database, such as membership application data, account data, event registration data, correspondence data, transaction data and notification data to various countries outside the EEA. Apple makes use of Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers between Apple Distribution International (in Ireland) and Apple, Inc. (in the US).
Our use of Stripe online payment processing involves a transfer of data necessary to process the payment and obtained via our website in connection with the online payment to various countries outside the EEA. Stripe, Inc. participates in the EU-US Privacy Shield.
You acknowledge that personal data contained in or associated with content that you submit for publication through our website or services, including your member profile, may be available, via the internet, around the world. We cannot prevent the use (or misuse) of such personal data by others.
Explanation of EU-US Privacy Shield: this is an adequacy decision of the European Commission in respect of the transfer and subsequent processing of personal data to and by organisations in the US who self-certify their compliance with the Privacy Shield Framework Principles contained in Annex II to the European Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2016/1250 of 12 July 2016. Further information can be found on the Privacy Shield website and in the ICO guidance.
Explanation of Standard Contractual Clauses: these are standard data protection clauses for data transfers between EU and non-EU countries adopted by the European Commission pursuant to a decision of the European Commission that those clauses provide an adequate level of protection for personal data transferred between the parties to those clauses. See the Europa website for more information.
In this section we describe our data retention policies and procedures.
Personal data that we process for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.
We will retain personal data as follows:
These retention periods are subject to any longer retention periods that may be necessaryfor compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, protecting your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person or the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure.
We will take appropriate technical and organisational precautions to secure your personal data and to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal data.
You acknowledge that the transmission of unencrypted (or inadequately encrypted) data over the internet is inherently insecure, and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the internet.
You should ensure that the password you use to access your account is not susceptible to being guessed, whether by a person or a computer program. You are responsible for keeping your password confidential and we will not ask you for your password (except when you log in to our website).
You have a number of different rights you might be able exercise against us in relation to personal data about you that we process. These are rights to:
The availability of these rights varies depending on the legal basis that we rely on for processing the relevant personal data. Below we have summarised these rights and explained how you can request to exercise them.
Access: You have the right to confirmation as to whether or not we process your personal data and, where we do, access to the personal data, together with certain additional information. That additional information includes details of the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned and the recipients of the personal data. Providing that the rights and freedoms of others are not affected, we will supply to you a copy of your personal data. The first copy will be provided free of charge, but additional copies may be subject to a reasonable fee.
Rectification: You have the right to have any inaccurate personal data about you corrected and, taking into account the purposes of the processing, to have any incomplete personal data about you completed. We may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Erasure: You have the right to the erasure of your personal data without undue delay where the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which we collected or otherwise processed them, you successfully object to our processing, you object to our use of your personal data for direct marketing purposes, we have processed your personal data unlawfully, or an applicable law requires the relevant personal data to be erased. However, there are exclusions to the right to erasure, including where we have overriding legitimate grounds to continue processing the relevant personal data or are required to do so by applicable law or where we need it to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.
Restriction: You have the right to restrict our processing of your personal data where you contest the accuracy of the personal data, our processing is unlawful, we no longer need the personal data for our purposes but you require it to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim, or you have objected to processing, pending the verification of that objection. Where processing has been restricted on this basis, we may continue to store your personal data. However, we will only otherwise process it to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim, to protect the rights of another natural or legal person or for reasons of important public interest or with your consent.
Object: You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data where we rely on legitimate interests as the legal basis for the processing. If you make such an objection, we will cease to process the personal information unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing that override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
Object to processing for direct marketing purposes: You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (including profiling for direct marketing purposes).
Data portability: Where our processing of your personal data is based on performance of a contract and is carried out by automated means, you have the right to receive your personal data from us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. However, this right does not apply where it would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.
Complain to a supervisory authority: If you consider that our processing of your personal data infringes data protection laws, you have a legal right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority responsible for data protection. You may do so in the EU member state of your habitual residence, your place of work or the place of the alleged infringement.
Withdraw consent: Where any of our processing is based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing before the withdrawal.
How to exercise these rights against us: You can exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal data that require any action by us by contacting us using any of the contact details displayed on our website contact page.
How to complain to a supervisory authority: To make a complaint to a supervisory authority, you may contact the supervisory authority of your choice using contact details made available by that supervisory authority. Relevant contact details for the UK supervisory authority, the ICO, can be found here.
Our website may include hyperlinks to, and details of, third party websites. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, the privacy policies and practices of third parties.
Members can add, delete and amend their billing and profile data at any time by logging into their account. Any changes made to billing and profile data this way will be recorded by our website and notified to our membership database administrator so that the changes can be reflected in our membership database. Any changes made to profile data this way will also automatically be reflected in the member profile related to the account, enabling members to control what information is visible in their member profile.
If any personal data that we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated, please let us know, or use your account to do so yourself.
What is a cookie?
A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by our web server to your web browser when you visit our website and is stored by your browser. The identifier is then sent back to our server each time your browser requests a page from our server
Cookies are either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by your web browser and remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by you before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire when you close your web browser.
Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a website user, but we might theoretically be able to identify individuals by linking any personal data we already have with information stored in and obtained from cookies.
Cookies that we use on our website:
| Category | Purpose | Relevant cookies | Expiry | First or third party |
| analysis | to help us to analyse the use and performance of our website and services | _ga
_gat _gid |
session | Third party (Google) |
| cookie consent | to check whether your web browser is set to allow or reject cookies | _wordpress_test_cookie | session | Third party (WordPress) |
We use Google Analytics to analyse the use of our website. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create aggregated statistical reports about the use of our website, which Google makes available to us. Google’s privacy policy is available here.
Managing cookies
Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. You can however obtain up-to-date information about blocking and deleting cookies via these links:
Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites, and if you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features on our website.
We are the Property Litigation Association, a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (company number 05364420) with its registered address at One Fleet Place, London, England, EC4M 7WS.
We are not registered as a data controller with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office because we only carry out exempt processing as a not-for-profit body, as set out in The Data Protection (Charges and Information) Regulations 2018 (paragraph 2(2) of the Schedule).
You can contact us using any contact details published on our website from time to time.
We may update this notice from time to time by publishing a new version on our website and, where any changes materially affect you, we will also make reasonable efforts to notify you.
16 May 2019